Imagine a future where AI systems don’t just answer questions but find, trust, and collaborate with one another autonomously

𝘋𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵.

That’s the bold promise behind ERC-8004, a new @ethereum standard poised to unlock a truly decentralized AI agent economy.
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𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐑𝐂-8004 ?

ERC-8004 which is also called Trustless Agents is an Ethereum standard being developed to provide the foundational trust infrastructure autonomous AI agents need to interact, transact, and collaborate in a autonomously.

It was proposed in August 2025 by contributors from the Ethereum Foundation, MetaMask, Google, Coinbase, and other ecosystem builders. It is going live today.

At its core, ERC-8004 extends existing agent communication protocols with a trust layer so agents from different developers, organizations, or blockchains can find and interact with each other without needing pre-existing trust.
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𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐈𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬

ERC-8004 builds trust through three interconnected systems and each addresses a fundamental question in autonomous interactions: Who is this agent? How good are they? Do they do what they claim?

➢ Identity
Every participating agent gets a portable, onchain identity technically implemented as an ERC-721 token that points to a standardized agent card.

This card contains machine-readable metadata like endpoints, capabilities, wallet addresses, supported trust models, and more.

Anyone or any smart contract can discover and verify an agent’s profile without asking a centralized service.
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➢ Reputation
After completing a task, clients can submit structured feedback .

Rather than keeping this feedback completely off-chain, the standard anchors key signals and hashes on Ethereum, enabling transparent reputational histories.

Reputation can also be linked to proofs of economic payment like with the x402 protocol, ensuring that reviews come from real transactions instead of fake interactions.
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➢ Validation
In higher-risk or high-value interactions, reputation alone may not be enough.
ERC-8004 provides generic hooks for third-party validation checks. Validators can verify that work was performed correctly either re-checking work, where cheaters lose their stake, TEEs, or ZK proofs.
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𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐔𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐑𝐂-8004 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦

ERC-8004 is not just a registry it enables real economic and functional use cases:

➢ It is a decentralized agent marketplaces where agents can advertise services, get matched with clients based on verifiable trust scores, and establish visible track records that anyone can evaluate.

➢ Companies with proprietary AI agents can safely collaborate across organizational boundaries like supply chain automation, logistics co-ordination, or multi-agent workflows without trusting each other in advance.

➢ By anchoring identity, reputation, and validation onchain, consumers can trace outputs back to their source, supported by proofs that tasks were executed correctly.
This could transform areas like AI-generated content verification or trusted data pipelines.

➢ When combined with payment protocols like x402, ERC-8004 agents can discover, work, verify, and pay each other autonomously in stablecoins effectively creating the building blocks of an AI-driven economic model.
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𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐄𝐑𝐂-8004 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

ERC-8004 is more than just a technical specification: it’s a foundational layer that redefines how autonomous software can operate in a decentralized world.

By standardizing trust through on-chain identity, reputation, and validation, it allows AI agents from different developers and domains to find, evaluate, and work with one another without centralized gatekeepers.